Busy Week Part 2

30 August 2017
22:46 BRT (EST + 1 hour)

On Sunday, when we arrived in Tres De Maio, the rotarians that brought me introduced me to the other exchange students. I was expecting to not know any of the other students, but to my surprise, one of the students from Canada I met at the Central States conference was in my district! All the inbound students were introduced to the rotarians there and then we were taken to a different room to go over different rules and regulations.
It felt like FOREVER until it was finished, but once it was, I figured out who my first "host family" would be. The family who will be taking me for the week I am in Tres De Maio. They had me try a type of hamburger, it has eggs, and many other things that aren't normally in a hamburger. It was very confusing and sadly, my appetite was still small. Also, I got a good nights sleep! I woke up the next day and my host mom, Aline, took me to the school where the conference had been.

I had looked at the schedule our Inbound Coordinator gave us and thought that there would be another day of inbound instructions and introductions (I'm not trying to do the alliteration.), but it was actually the first day of our language course! Once thing I definitely wasn't expecting for that was that, besides there being multiple different teachers throughout the day (One in morning and one in the afternoon.), was that most of the teachers didn't know English. Almost all the other students had been there for at least a week and so had at least a basic understanding of Portuguese. It was only my second day, not including Saturday as there wasn't much Portuguese being used as well as I was traveling for most of it.

Yesterday, the 29th, we were asked to wear athletic cloths to class, and in the afternoon we did gym class with the students at the school. As well as we hung out with a few music classes.
(Also every day, at around 10:00 (10am) we have a snack, then at 12:00 (12pm) we have lunch and finally at 15:00 (3pm) we have another snack. Our classes lasts until 18:00 (5pm).)
At the end of class yesterday, our inbound coordinator asked us what we think the teachers could improve upon to help us learn Portuguese. Some students said "more activities," or "more reading." I just wanted to be able to understand what the teacher was saying. They only spoke Portuguese and I never knew what I was suppose to do until another student told me.

And so, today, they said that they had taken into account what we had said. Following that, they said that they would be speaking Portuguese the whole day, no English and no phones to use Google translate. You might be able to tell how I am having trouble learning Portuguese. However, I am learning, even if it is a word at a time.
Before writing this, I got to go to a CTG. Which is an event where there is traditional dancing. We also showed them some of our songs, as well as got to participate in some simple, follow the person you're holding hands with, kind of dances. It was really fun.
I took a few videos that I want to share, but due to it being now 23:37 (11:37pm) at night, I think I'm just going to go to sleep and add them in the morning... Boa noite!!